Because I don't want to place a limit on the message delivered by the song.

No contributions elsewhere from the OP :( I have a name for threads like this.

Shut the fuck up and pm me asap please. :)

:rofl:

I'm not saying they're not.

I only mentioned Prog & Jazz because everybody else seemed to keep mentioning them as something that can compare to classical because of it's complexity or whatever.
I personally don't think you need to go to something as complex or technical as that to prove modern music is just as good as classical. The simplest of pop songs will do just as well.

of course, you ignore the truth of what i was saying and resort to personal and baseless attacks... which just make you look like an even bigger idiot than before. nothing in this post really has any basis - nowhere did i say anything that suggests i don't understand other people. you're just defensive because i pointed out that your stupid, self-righteous post is just that. i'm just as qualified as any other person to make any judgement i want to.

So then why not write a poem instead of a song?

Because the words with music behind them impact me emotionally in ways that they would without music behind them.

Classical was the last genre I explored, and of all other styles of music it is the only one I'm really picky about.

The classical "fans" I've talked to are the predictable types of course, uptight, sniffling, cobbsnockers who'd **** themselves into orbit the minute a Disturbed track purrs from the stereo.

Pretentious douchebags can be found clinging to any genre of music. I'd doubt you'd find a disproportionate number associated with classical.

Anything can be found anywhere. But yes, there are indeed a very disproportionate number of pretentious douchebags to be found in the world of classical music.

Urban, I feel that saying one finds a particular song more beautiful than another is not pretentious or snobbery, but instead just shows a particular person’s tastes. For example, I don’t feel my musical tastes are pretentious...favorite songs of mine include the “Inchworm” song and Naked Eyes’ “Always Something There to Remind Me.” Yet after your post when I listened to Iggy & The Stooges “1969" main riff and Thin Lizzy’s “Waiting for an Alibi” baseline, I found I much prefer Bach’s Cello Suite No.1, i-Prelude because of the feeling I have when I listen to it. To me this Bach piece is beautiful while "1969" is not.

I am curious how it happens that people (almost all of whom I feel are fundamentally similar) develop such different musical tastes, because to be blunt I would actually prefer to listen to silence than to Iggy & The Stooge’s “1969" (except for the point several seconds after 3:40 when the lead singer makes a very funny gagging, strangled sound, which amused me...heh heh...I actually listened to that several times). My dislike for the song overall doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with liking the song :) or with that style of music, but the song and the riff just don’t affect me like they must affect you, Urban. I actually had a hard time forcing myself to listen to the whole of "1969," but I can handle the Bach cello piece very easily, enjoying it time and again:



SuperFob, I've been thinking more about your original question over the last several days while listening to Bach as well as other music, trying to come up with a clearer answer than the one I gave before. I feel that studying older classical music probably gives people a set of terminology and concepts with which to understand other types of music better, but older classical music doesn’t include all innovations in the musical world, obviously, and so can never be "better" than newer music...just different than more recent “classical” music compositions (such as those by Aaron Copland and John Williams) or other genres of music.

The reason an older form of classical music cannot really be a yardstick by which to measure the value of newer music was explained well by a classical musician, Stephen, who posts visual representations of classical music online (Music Animation Machine). When one of his listeners recently wrote, “I do firmly believe that J.S.Bach's music is the yard-stick by which all other classical music must be measured,” Stephen (my newly discovered hero) replied as follows:
One other little comment for SuperFob: my preference for lyrics is always to be able to understand them, too!

Theodore Adorno anyone?

[spoiler]He's an idiot[/spoiler]

True, but most of them were aspiring Julliard fuckawks so it was only convenient to me at the time.

No no no no no, You totally missed the point of what I was saying.

I gave those examples of those songs I find to be just as beautiful as anything ever written by anybody. My point was basically if you totally dismiss modern rock music LIKE those songs just because they're not classical you're an elitist snob.

If you listen to them & decide that they're not to your taste I have no problem with that at all.

Oh! I see your point. Thanks for clarifying it. I guess most people I've met who hate particular songs don't hate them because of their genre but because of how they sound...which is sort of the same thing. I agree with you, though, that if people don't even *listen* to a song because they have been told it is modern rock and they think "modern rock is awful," then those people might be a bit pretentious or at least guilty of stereotyping, since songs within a genre are not all the same. A related example would be when a person who dislikes "Achy Breaky Heart" dismisses all country music because she doesn't like that song and also has the negative stereotype that "country folk are silly and uncool bumpkins, and country songs are always uninteresting, corny love songs."

What makes you say that?

An uncanny ability to see the really obvious things most other people seem able to see as well.

Humm, I dont think so. The composing styles and skills are so different.

What we have now is more a "popular" music, music for the people.

The great composers like Bethoven, Mozart, Wagner did not compose for the people. The goal is not to entertain the ppl, the goal is something bigger in my opinion. You have to have a certain degree of musical knowledge to understand what the great composers did. Not that you have to be a musician, no. But you have to understand formats and geaographical issues to fully understand some classical pieces.

Then here is the question: why dont we have more "classical-like" composers nowadays? Where are the great composers?

My answer to this question is: they are in the movies industry.

See Danny Elfman for example. His work is amazing.

I disagree with that as well. You mean to tell me you think all music that gets created today outside the handful of composers is made to entertain a large group of people? I think the best musicians will always be the ones who make the music they like. Those that completely ignore what anyway says about them or their music and do what they enjoy. If you talk to a true musician they will often tell you they create music not just for fun but because they feel a need to do so.

What makes you think that?

Is this thread still open?

Superfob-do u like any other genre of music?

What makes you think I don't? I don't care much for classical music at all. A few things here or there have caught my attention (most of it coming from Beethoven), but that's all.

I don't care for the instruments, most of all. I bet classical music fans probably see the original orchestral instruments used in classical music as some how 'pure', 'original', and superior, but most of it just sounds incredibly plain to me, especially violins.

I think that's part of the reason why I've actually enjoyed some Beethoven's work. The pieces of music that I HAVE enjoyed didn't have much of the plain orchestral string instruments in them.

So you have spent the last few days arguing about a genre that you don't share a huge affinity for and not bothered looking at the wealth of solid opinions and well written write ups eleswhere on the boards?

Now is that John Williams the classical guitarist or John Williams the composer?
for future reference, please be more specific, I can't answer you until I know who the heck you are talking about.

Considering he mentioned composers in the same sentence I would have thought it was blindingly obvious.

Or is this just you doing your usual thing of making a mountain out of a molehill.

Here I was thinking he was talking about John Williams the Australian senator.

woosh I got it wrong on both accounts. John William, the Australian senator, before entering politics was a sheep shearer, and if you compare his work with sheep to say J.S. Bach's Sheep May Safely Graze, from BWV 208, I think hands down J.S. Bach's work is far more superior to John William's work.

Not really, no. I would elaborate, but I'd rather not waste my time doing that for someone who finds it so taxing to actually read my posts properly.

Ahh, SuperFob...this part of your paragraph in bold inspired me to look again at the variety of instruments that have been used in classical music (in the European tradition) ranging from around 900 A.D. to now...and made me realize again how wonderfully diverse and creative musicians have been over the centuries while thinking of new ways of making music and different types of music. It is only relatively recently (during the last several hundred years) that what many people may think of as "classical music" instruments became standard, and before that time there were many other instruments that people used in classical music (lutes, dulcimer, hurdy-gurdies, etc.).

Now if a classical music fan limits her sights (or ears) to just the Classical period from the mid-1700s to mid-1800s or so, then she might be led to think that violin, viola, cello, etc. were the "original" instruments...but the reality of music development is oh-so-much more wild and delightful! And this is just considering classical music in the European tradition. If you broaden your outlook to include classical music from other areas of the world...and all the different methods of tuning that exist (not just the one most of us probably think of as standard)...then classical music becomes far from plain, I feel!

Ha ha! Oh, I heartily agree, Neapolitan, that J.S. Bach's "Sheep May Safely Graze" is much superior to John Williams's sheep-shearing work that he completed in his "Shearer" period from 1974-99:

"Sheep May Safely Graze" (Orchestral Version, based on J.S. Bach, which my orchestra is currently playing with standard instruments):



"Sheep May NOT Safely Graze" (Sheep being sheared with shearing instruments...and sturdy chain):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...epshearing.jpg

because anyone with half a clue about musical history knows that the majority of classical composers wrote their music for the King and his court, as opposed to the paupers and peasants.

so, no, the music of the great composers was in fact 'not' written 'for the people'.




anyone else thinking superfob = the unfan?

Irrelevant. Even if the post I quoted was technically referring to the fact that Mozart and Beethoven weren't writing for the people, the point it was trying to get across was that their music wasn't written for entertainment purposes. And that point is incorrect, seeing as Beethoven and Mozart were writing with the intention of entertaining the king and his court.

This reminds me that just yesterday I was thinking about patronage of musicians in the past and now. Since musicians, like most artists, have almost always had to struggle to find a way to make a living and to compose music, and that can't be easy, I am impressed when someone like John Williams (the composer, not the Australian senator) manages to make a profession out of music composition...actually earning a living doing something he must love!

I wonder what differences exist between music that composers like Mozart wrote to entertain others (royalty) and the music that they wrote to entertain themselves...but I don't know enough about the chronology of their compositions to know the answer. Apparently Bach wrote many pieces for his family members to help them practice their own instruments...I should think that music would differ from what he wrote solely for himself.

It would be fun to hear what sort of music people create when they think that no one will ever debate its merits, or argue with each other about it, as occurs on MusicBanter. I suspect many musicians create music because of strong viewpoints, emotions, and their desire to share them with others (which we also see in discussions of music)...so it is hard for me to think of music ever being created without an audience in mind...and potentially a large audience. I think Mozart probably realized that his compositions would reach a far wider audience than the one that paid for their creation...although I don't know how many peasants got to hear them at the time! Hopefully the peasants (my ancestors) were at least having fun kicking up their heels to some rousing tavern music.

Actual if you read any respected books on both composers you will quickly learn even though they were both writing often for the nobles, these two very often did there own thing because they were fed up with the royal crap.

Because the two didnt just bend to the church/nobles will it helped lead them to infamy.

“I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings.” - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Ahh...that's nice to know. I always think defiance of the ruling power structure is a beautiful thing when it doesn't hurt people and when the person feels there are good reasons for doing so. It is nice to remember that people then (in the past) weren't so different than now...and did not want to bend to the will of the church or nobles or deny their own feelings, as if their feelings were worthless compared to those of others. Thanks for the info.